Apple Laying Groundwork for Advanced Mobile Web Apps?
It seems Apple is continuing to invest in advancing web-based technologies to provide a more full feature experienced on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Daring Fireball's John Gruber describes in detail an impressive web framework called PastryKit that was developed by Apple and deployed in their iPhone User Guide web page (when viewed from an iPhone). (Video demonstration)
The article is somewhat technical for casual readers, but essentially, Apple has implemented a few key interface features in Javascript that could make web-apps feel much more like native iPhone apps. These include:
- Completely hiding the address bar
- Allowing for fixed-position toolbars that don't move when you scroll
- Allows for scrolling with momentum so you can quickly scroll long lists
Any iPhone web apps you might have used before have likely demonstrated the same fixed scrolling speed inherent in mobile Safari, and were unable to keep a dedicated toolbar at the top or bottom of the pages. These small changes go a long way towards making web apps feel more natural on the iPhone.
Since these features have been implemented by Apple in Javascript, they could be available to any web developer. Despite big strides in Javascript performance in mobile Safari, however, the performance of their framework still lags on older generation devices.
In the future, it seems likely that we'll see more and more functionality move to the mobile web. In fact, Google Engineering vice president predicted that the mobile web would become the dominant mobile application development platform of the future, despite Apple's massive success with the App Store. Indeed, over the past year we've seen advancements in HTML5/CSS which include support for CSS animations, OpenGL 2.0/WebGL, accelerometers, and even GPS support.
As these technologies become more common and iPhones continue to become faster, it's easy to see how the future web applications could replace some of the current native App Store apps.
The article is somewhat technical for casual readers, but essentially, Apple has implemented a few key interface features in Javascript that could make web-apps feel much more like native iPhone apps. These include:
- Completely hiding the address bar
- Allowing for fixed-position toolbars that don't move when you scroll
- Allows for scrolling with momentum so you can quickly scroll long lists
Any iPhone web apps you might have used before have likely demonstrated the same fixed scrolling speed inherent in mobile Safari, and were unable to keep a dedicated toolbar at the top or bottom of the pages. These small changes go a long way towards making web apps feel more natural on the iPhone.
Since these features have been implemented by Apple in Javascript, they could be available to any web developer. Despite big strides in Javascript performance in mobile Safari, however, the performance of their framework still lags on older generation devices.
In the future, it seems likely that we'll see more and more functionality move to the mobile web. In fact, Google Engineering vice president predicted that the mobile web would become the dominant mobile application development platform of the future, despite Apple's massive success with the App Store. Indeed, over the past year we've seen advancements in HTML5/CSS which include support for CSS animations, OpenGL 2.0/WebGL, accelerometers, and even GPS support.
As these technologies become more common and iPhones continue to become faster, it's easy to see how the future web applications could replace some of the current native App Store apps.
Top Rated Comments
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28 months ago
Problem is that PastryKit isn't a public framework at the moment... It would be nice if Apple opened it up or if someone else could re-implement some of the useful bits of the code but until this is an officially sanctioned development framework, using it will always be a bit of a hack...
28 months ago
Full Google Gears/HTML5 offlining functionality needed across the board please Apple.
28 months ago
I can confirm that the user guide has behaved like this since at least the release of OS 3.0. I remember checking it out and thinking "Wow, that's neat how much this seems like a native app once you place it on your home screen."
I would say I'm surprised at how long it took nerds to notice, but then again, how often do nerds look at introductory user guides?
I would say I'm surprised at how long it took nerds to notice, but then again, how often do nerds look at introductory user guides?
28 months ago
heh, they've been saying that mobiles are the future of the web for bloody years now.
Until the speed of web apps = the speed of dedicated apps, i'm out
Until the speed of web apps = the speed of dedicated apps, i'm out
28 months ago
I can confirm that the user guide has behaved like this since at least the release of OS 3.0. I remember checking it out and thinking "Wow, that's neat how much this seems like a native app once you place it on your home screen."
I would say I'm surprised at how long it took nerds to notice, but then again, how often do nerds look at introductory user guides?
check dashcode, there is a template for that, it even allows safari/mobile safari separation, offline apps, ...
People often complain that iWeb sucks and is not flexible, and it seems no one really looks at Dashcode which also comes for free, it got pretty nice since it first appearance.
I just say: MVC, Bindings, rich editor, ...
28 months ago
The ability to grab the scrollbar on the right side of the screen (like a real computer) could be very helpful for long webpages. Right now, it can take 20 seconds to scroll down to the bottom of a webpage. BUT THAT WOULD CONSUME VALUABLE SCREEN SPACE. What would be much better (take our your iPhone right now and test this to see what I'm talking about) is when you are at the top or middle of a webpage and you want to scroll down or up, if you flick REALLY FAST, it should scroll really far. Right now it slows down way to soon if you flick REALLY FAST.
28 months ago
heh, they've been saying that mobiles are the future of the web for bloody years now.
Until the speed of web apps = the speed of dedicated apps, i'm out
Here here. Me too.
I really don't get this web stuff.
So, ever since the iPhone came out, people were waiting for native apps. Now they are here, people want more advanced web apps?
How can the web ever be as good or fast as a natively compiled and run application and why would you want it? What advantages does it have?
I'm yet to be convinced that Google's "everything's a web browser" vision will ever be totally true. I have yet to see any web application - on any platform - be without annoying lag of some description or without being somehow constrained by the 'one-size-fits-all' constraints of the web. That includes Google's own mail interface and - well - the MobileMe interface is just shocking.
Why? Why?
28 months ago
I've never been a fan of web apps, so you can imagine I'm not to thrilled about this. I personally prefer the speed and reliability of a native app. No matter if its on my phone, or on my computer, I want my apps to be independent of a web browser (which is just another app) and not rely on the availability of an internet connection or the reliability of a server to function. If this come about I may play around with it just to see what its about but I know I will not be using web apps seriously.
28 months ago
No matter if its on my phone, or on my computer, I want my apps to be independent of a web browser (which is just another app) and not rely on the availability of an internet connection or the reliability of a server to function.
fwiw, in this case, the web app described is not dependent on an internet connection. It stores everything to a local database.
See the linked video.
arn
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